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Because the work that I do is somewhat unusual (or possibly interdisciplinary), I at times make observations that I don’t find anywhere in the secondary literature, which in time may prove to be novel and worthwhile or else just wrong (so far my track record is about 50-50). One recent such observation, the worthwhileness of which I’m still trying to work out, is a consistency of temporally and ideologically distant justifications of various varieties of colonial and American slavery. This family of ideologies coalesces around the assumption or assertion that enslavement is a necessarily harsh curative for the reprobate state of the enslaved, through which they will be, in some way, redeemed…

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If the box office is anything to go by, you probably haven’t seen “The Wachowskis'” Jupiter Ascending. That is, I think, your loss. Not just for the lover of nanar, who shouldn’t miss this over-the-top, awkwardly plotted, heavy-handedly themed, often cringe-inducingly scripted space opera, at least 20 minutes of which’s total runtime is made up of slow-motion falling, Jupiter Ascending is the increasingly rare sci-fi blockbuster title that is actually about something. And not just something but something worth talking about. So, because I am apparently incapable of doing the one thing I absolutely need to do here and finish that damned book review, today I’m going to talk about the politics of a sci-fi movie…

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I commented in a previous post that the still-emergent field of New Imperial History, the ‘post-colonial turn’ of imperial history, in which I can be said to work, was lacking a coherent critical theoretical framework of its own. Instead it must borrow bits and pieces here and there from other school of critical theory (such as critical race theory, the subject of the post) of greater or lesser applicability. Well, in the intervening months such a theory has yet to produce itself spontaneously. So, as I am currently working on a theory-heavy section of my dissertation, I felt inspired to lay out some of what I think are necessary elements of that new theoretical framework…

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As you’re likely aware from reading this blog, or possibly from following me on Twitter or Tumblr, I enjoy both critical theoretical analysis of texts and speculative fiction. I also enjoy submitting the one to the other, especially on questions of political ideologies inherent in or communicated by the text. This is basically how I unwind after a long day of working on my dissertation. [1] One of the reasons I love speculative fiction, be it science fiction or fantasy (is magical realism a genre of speculative fiction? I don’t really care for magical realism) is that the limitless range of possibilities of setting provide ample ground to explore the issues that define our own. The power to reshape the world around an idea is to power to raise a truly limitless number of mirrors to the world as it is and to interrogate those reflections. Unsurprisingly, then, speculative fiction often raises questions of social justice and oppression. Rightfully, the power of the pen is deployed to question the structures that hold some in bondage and keep others in privilege. Rightly but not always successfully. Intentions not being magical, even the best ones can’t guarantee a successful effort. One of the more common missteps (or perhaps stumbling blocks) is the thematic trope of the oppressed superhman: a minority of humans with superhman abilities who are marginalised and/or oppressed by the the mass of regular people. This is a familiar enough trope, explored across a wide variety of media and through a number of narrative lenses: from genetically engineered superhumans in Star Trek: The Next Generation to subterranean-humanoid-monsters-as-queer-metaphor in Clive Barkers Nightbreed. Despite its ubiquity, and presumed utility, however, the trope is fundamentally problematic as a way of exploring the issues and experienced of marginalised peoples and communities.

In order to better explore this trope and why it is both engaging and problematic we’ll first need to define it then examine it in action. First I’ll lay out some salient characteristics of the trope, then we can take a closer look at two of my favourite speculative fiction texts in which the oppression of a class of superhumans is a major or the major theme: X-Men and Dragon Age. [2] I’ll be peppering both textual analyses with links to the relevant wikis so that the interested can follow up on the specifics of each IP. Finally, I’ll build on those analyses by using them to illustrate the problematics and shortcomings of the trope…

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The latest episode of Season 2 of Crash Course History examined the history and historiography of ‘the West,’ which readers will likely be familiar with as one of the more fundamental paradigms of historical self-understanding of those of us who speak European languages and live in the Americas, Australasia, and those portions of the European subcontinent that lie west of Ukraine. The more specific question under discussion is the ‘rise’ of the West: that is, how did it come about that the West dominates (for now…duh duh duh…ominous music) the rest of the world. Host John Green doesn’t attempt to answer the question, thankfully, but rather discusses various answers that have been proposed by historians other authors. I would like to propose a fairly simple answer: it does not. How so? Well, for the same reason that neither unicorns nor elves dominate the earth: ‘the West’ is not a coherent concept and its dominance or lack thereof is not a coherent proposition.

This weekend, instead of working on that book review I keep promising, I found myself at The Burn, a former great house (I won’t even attempt to write the name of the former propieters of this country house because it has a [ʃ] sound in it and, this being Scotland, they probably spell that with a ‘y,’ or a consonant cluster, or the number 4, or something), now retreat centre for educational events, off in the Scottish countryside, nestled on the border of Aberdeenshire and Angus, in the charming little town of Edzell, very near the Highland Fault, for a conference. I’d been brought there on a training program on conference chairing, where the conference organisers paid to have some of Aberdeen’s history PhDs chair panels, to gain some experience in a more structured way than there is usually opportunity for, in this important-but-underplayed part of academic life. I chaired the very first panel, nominally on law but including a paper on early modern Genevans’ (before Geneva became a canton of the Swiss Federation) attitudes to the notion of union in light of commercial society, as well as papers on Polish-Lithuanian legal culture and the Scottish courts during the Cromwellian commonwealth. My more senior colleagues presenting papers all praised my performance but I think my favourite comment received was that my chairing was “disciplined,” since this was simultaneously the most honest and most euphemistic praise I think I’ve ever received.

The conference, as you can likely guess from the title of the post and my own research activities, was on the culture of early modern political unions…

Warning: This piece contains mild spoilers for both Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire and the trilogies The Prince of Nothing and The Aspect-Emperor. I’ve tried to restrict them to world-building and characters but plot spoiliers may have slipped through my net.

Fantasy, of course, is all about white people. The proper fantasy subject matter, we all know, is mighty lords in stout keeps with absurdly-large swords and fantastically unlikely social structures, encased in medieval stasis. The natural sort of people for this setting are Brits, Vikings, maybe Spaniards (no one actually knows what a Spaniard looks like). Also popular are Brits coated in a thin pastiche of medieval Frenchness, based primarily on WWII-era stereotypes and a general sense that there is a book called The Romaun of the Rose and also chivalry. After all, who is Ursula K. Le Guin, even? But in this age of political correctness and reasonably interesting human drama, it’s probably best to include some black people.

But how can you convincingly add black people to what is, after all, essentially medieval Europe? Black people hadn’t been invented yet. They can’t just be running around, looking different, that obviously never happened and it would seriously strain any reasonable suspension of disbelief. Sure, your fantasy has immortal, subterranean elf-dwarf people; eugenicist Kantian horned giants; and talking tree people but black people?! A bridge too far. They’ll have to come from somewhere: a single country that can also provide some sexy exoticness when needed. And so was born The Country of Black People…